Of a hundred peoples who have sought the cause of physical and moral
evil, the Hindoos are the first whose romantic imaginations are known
to us. They are sublime, if the word “sublime” be taken to mean
“high.” Evil, according to the ancient Brahmans, comes of a quarrel
that once took place in the highest heavens, between the faithful and
the jealous angels. The rebels were cast out of heaven into Ondera
for millions of ages. But the great being pardoned them at the end
of a few thousand years; they were turned into men, and they brought
upon the earth the evil that they had engendered in the empyræan. We
have elsewhere described at length this ancient fable, the source of
all fables.
It was finely imitated by gifted nations, and grossly reproduced by
barbarians. Nothing, indeed, is more spiritual and agreeable than
the story of Pandora and her box. If Hesiod has had the merit of
inventing this allegory, I think it as superior to Homer as Homer is
to Lycophron.
This box of Pandora, containing all the evils that have issued from
it, seems to have all the charm of the most striking and delicate
allusions. Nothing is more enchanting than this origin of our
sufferings. But there is something still more admirable in the story
of Pandora. It has a very high merit, which seems to have escaped
notice: it is that no one was ever commanded to believe it.